


The Truth

by JollyCat



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-21 16:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6058012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JollyCat/pseuds/JollyCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is fighting a battle against the Wesen uprising and his friends are helping. Except Renard, where the distance just seems to get wider every day.<br/>Or does it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starts round about 'Star-Crossed' (and contains a couple of spoilers), heads off in its own direction after that, written because there has to be more going on with Renard than meets the eye.

Renard works on the assumption he's under surveillance everywhere - phones, vehicle, precinct, office, home - and probably both sound and vision, night and day. As the quote goes, it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Even taking Rachel Wood to his bed he assumes that someone, somewhere is probably watching. Which is an interesting experience. There could well be agents around him too, maybe even detectives, officers he's known for years - there is virtually no one he can treat entirely without suspicion. It doesn't really matter who's watching: Black Claw, Hadrian's Wall (ridiculous damn name), anyone else, just so long as he remembers - they both remember - that someone probably is. And of course it's far too risky for them to meet, to talk openly, to touch. They do though, when the need becomes so great it outweighs even the danger.

********

Renard sees Hank and Nick in his office, this strange ritual sacrifice case. He stays firmly on his side of the desk, keeps the conversation impersonal. In the bigger scheme of things he thinks this case, horrifying as it is, is incidental. Despite the very real deaths, the crosses and the occult elements mean the press coverage is more sensationalist than concerned. He hopes they can bring it to a conclusion quickly though - he doesn't need to be linked to a policing failure at the moment. As Hank and Nick leave he has a final thought, deliberately makes a comment about his great great grandfather being burned at the stake - he is not human and they need to be reminded of that occasionally. He sees the mental step back from him they both take at his words. After they've gone he sits for a while, supposedly looking at an email but really running through possibilities and permutations in his head, trying to work out his next moves. He's interrupted by Wu, who is carrying a pile of case files, the recently completed reports from his detectives. Renard flicks through, reading some thoroughly, others just skimming. He gets to the file on the Diamond Lake case, this is one he will read carefully.

There are photos, CSU and ME reports, typed notes from Hank and Nick. Nick has also included his hand-written notes - his writing is getting worse, Renard thinks. It's a good thing he's used to it, anyone else would find it hard going. Renard makes his junior detectives do this, attach their written notes to the typed version that will be the official document. It's too easy to simplify, to make the narrative run better in the worked up report and that can cause problems further down the line. Looking at the original notes gives him a chance to check. Of course Nick hasn't been required to do this in a long time but since his not-suspension and run in with the FBI he's started doing it again. Renard reads with concentration, both versions.

 

Wu comes back in for the files and Renard hands them over, points out a few issues, notes attached to some of them. He looks at his watch, he'll work until 6, then go to the gym.

********

He lifts weights, he swims and then heads back to the locker room. When he picks up his towel he slips the tiny scanner into his palm - it's only an inch or so long, easy to conceal. As he showers he runs the scanner over his skin, checks the tiny telltale is green at the end - there are no bugs or trackers in him at any rate. He doesn't allow himself to think about where this scanner took him the first time he used it, can't let his concentration slip just yet. He dresses in new clothes, dark jeans and a t shirt fresh from the packet, and leaves the room carrying nothing but the locker key. He heads down the stairs and out of a side door, across the alley and straight in another door. Climbs the stairs, five flights. This building is a hotel - belongs to a chain, a cheap one, identical boxy rooms, staff who aren't being paid enough to stay long. He reaches 541 and pushes open the door.

Nick is there already, sitting on the edge of the bed and he stands as Renard walks into the room. There is a moment of hesitation - they've been together like this so little each time almost feels like the first - but then Nick steps forward and puts his arms around him, says his name very quietly. Sean rests his cheek against the dark head for a second, breathes in the scent of his hair, of Nick and then puts his hand to Nick's face, tilts it up so they can kiss.

Sean would like to spend all night loving Nick, give him so much, take him past every level of pleasure he's ever known, but they don't have long, can risk an hour or so at most. They need to talk too but the touching is the first priority. Sean wants as much of Nick's skin against his as he can, knows Nick feels the same. They pull off clothes, run hands and lips against the other's warmth, find the places that bring the most pleasure. They moan and gasp and says the words they can't say anywhere else. And Sean knows this is nothing like his carefully choreographed liaison of the night before, this is need and want and desperation. This is his real life, here in this cheap hotel room, this single hour. This is the truth.

They lie together afterwards, as much pain in it as pleasure because there is so little time. They talk about the Wesen uprising, Meisner, Trubel, Eve, Andrew Dixon, Rachel Wood, the keys. They tell each other as much as they can in this short moment. Even though they both knew it was a possibility, have discussed it before, it hurts to tell Nick about Rachel. Nick kisses him, understands. He'd said once that together they could change the course of history - and they both know that is happening now, that normal rules are set aside.

Finally it's time to leave. After this there can only be stilted conversations, a faked distance getting wider every day. Nick does his best, sneaking in information in the differences between his written and typed reports, but there is no room for the words they really want to say. Wu is the only one who knows there is anything, anything at all, gets messages from Renard to Nick, but he doesn't, can't know this. Not yet.

Renard slips back into the gym, into the locker room, changes into his original clothes. Heads back out into the lie that is his life. Saving the world has a very high price. He hopes it's worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

Nick showers before leaving the hotel, then heads to a bar - a busy one, lots of people - and gets a beer. He trusts Monroe absolutely but he doesn't want awkward questions from a man with the sense of smell of a wolf. It strikes him that Sean's caution is rubbing off on him. Then he snorts slightly into his drink - rubbing off on him quite literally as it happens. For a moment he feels ridiculously light-hearted, okay, be honest, happy. Just because of an hour in a cheap hotel. Be honest again, because of Sean. And then he sobers because an hour was all they had and because Sean's caution is justified. Enemies fighting a war, there can sometimes be a grudging respect between them and at least both sides know where they stand. But a man - or Zauberbiest - who gives open and vocal support to one side while really being on the other, that man's enemies will give him nothing but the slowest death they can manage if they find out the truth. Nick sips his drink and thinks again about how they got here.

Renard saw the danger Chavez and her organisation presented right from the start, heard rumors months ago, had approaches that foreshadowed Black Claw. He could have done many things - watched and waited, aloof from everyone, thrown his lot in with one side or the other, either would welcome him. Instead Sean came to Nick, trusted him, worried and planned with him. And then everything nearly went wrong, Juliette and Jack and the Royals - how the hell could they have planned for that? Perhaps they could have really become enemies - or at least not allies - but Nick woke up from his own misery and looked around him just in time, realised how long Hadrian's Wall have been watching him, how much of a threat Black Claw really is. And if Hadrian's Wall have tracked him, monitored him in the past are they doing it still? And how? He goes to Renard, to Sean.

  
Sean is already cautious, won't talk at the precinct. They meet at an address in Belmont, an empty house, supposedly interviewing a witness. At first they are both tense and Nick is angry, even though he's the one who wanted to meet. He's been fighting and been set up and he's still so confused about Adalind and Kelly and he's lost his mother and Juliette and as far as he can see all Renard's done recently is sit in his office and - according to precinct gossip - have long lunches with some politician. When he says some of this he sees the flash of anger in the other man's face.

"Nick, did you hear anything we talked about all this time? This violence, this aggression, it's only one side of the coin. If Black Claw want to alter the world they need more than just fear and thugs, they need politicians, leaders on their side, playing by their rules. We need to know what's going on. The only way we can do that is if they think someone is with them, if they think I'm with them. And not with you."

Nick feels stupid and surprisingly hurt by the thought of distancing himself - even in pretence - from someone he cares about so much. Rewinds the thought - he cares about Renard? He looks, really looks at the other man for the first time. His face seems somehow different, as though he's lost weight he shouldn't have, he looks tired and a little sad. The truth is he does care, he knows they both do. He doesn't know quite what to say, how to apologise, lifts his hand to reach out but then drops it.

Renard shakes his head slightly, as though clearing his thoughts, changes the subject,  
"You're worried about Hadrian's Wall tracking you? I think we should both assume there is surveillance on us, around us - electronics or people, Hadrian's Walk and Black Claw. Listening devices, trackers on vehicles. But I've brought something that can at least check for any tracker, including actually under your skin."

The scanner is tiny but Renard says run it over his skin - bare skin ideally - and it will detect anything that might be there. Nick is so freaked out by the idea of a tracker actually in him that he pulls off his t-shirt and starts straightaway. It's only as he's twisting round trying to reach his own back that it strikes him that it might have been a better idea to wait for the privacy of his own bathroom.  
"Do you want a hand?"  
Renard looks half-amused, half ... something else. There doesn't seem a way out of this with dignity so Nick hands him the scanner and turns around, almost in a gesture of bravado.

Well, this is turning out to be an eye-opening afternoon. The realisation that Sean matters to him? That's one thing. The discovery that Sean can give him one of the most painfully arousing minutes of his life, just by running some gadget over his back, that's a whole other discovery. By the time Sean says, "You're clean", Nick is very, very hard and he can hear his own breathing. Can he possibly bluff his way through this? Behind him Sean's voice is very close,  
"Of course there's no reason a tracker couldn't be lower down, to be thorough you'd have to be checked all over."  
Nick can hear in Sean's voice it's already too late to bluff. He swallows,  
"To be absolutely thorough I should really check you as well you know."  
And Nick hears Sean stop breathing all together.

Nick still doesn't turn, instead he puts his hand to his belt buckle, undoes it. He feels Sean's warm hand against his shoulder blade,  
"There is a room at the back which would be better."

The anxiety about being tracked is real (and, later events will prove, justified) and so they do check each other carefully, their relief when the telltale stays green is genuine. But after that fingers, hands and lips follow the path taken by the little scanner. It's the hottest, most amazingly unexpected sex Nick has ever had. And it's with Sean Renard.

******

  
Nick drains the last of his beer, he's drunk it almost without noticing, lost in the memory. He's been with Sean so little he finds himself playing and re-playing every moment they've spent together. He even finds himself having imaginary conversations in his head, driving alone and looking across to a passenger, a tall passenger, in the empty seat next to him. He wishes Sean was here, talking through their day together, having a beer together, leaving together. The truth is, of course, that he's in love, in love with a man he's held at arm's length for all these years.

Nick knows he can't talk about Sean but he can talk about Captain Renard. He talks to Monroe about the murders, the sacrifices, drops Renard's name into the conversation. Monroe is already tetchy, worried about what's going on, worried about Rosalee, and he reacts grumpily. What's Renard doing, he wants to know, they all helped him and they've hardly seen him since. Nick points out that he was there at the factory but Monroe just shrugs, says a Royal and a Zauberbiest, can't expect him to put himself out for anyone. Nick thinks this is unfair but doesn't know what to say.

When he sees Adalind he tells her the story about Renard's great great grandfather - that's the sort of amusing story anyone might share after all (well, maybe not anyone and not unless the person they were sharing it with is the kind of person who once dug up their own mother for a potion). Adalind though is scornful, says Sean would have lit the match himself if he thought it was to his advantage.

Nick lies in bed, at the far edge, listening to Adalind breathe, to Kelly in his crib. How does he get from here to where he wants to be? Is it even going to be possible? And in the darkest hours of the night he acknowledges his greatest fears. What if for Sean this is just sex? Or worse, what if it's the rest of Sean's life that is the truth? What if really it's the time that Sean spends with him - hearing their plans, their ideas - that is just pretence?


	3. Chapter 3

Wu enjoyed knowing at first. Wesen, Grimms, this strange new world and being one of the few to be allowed to see it. Sure, it was scary but a kind of exciting, good scary - like ghost stories by the fire or a giant roller coaster. It was also nice to know he hadn't gone mad, that had been quite the relief. Lately though it seems just scary, unpleasant scary, the Wesen uprising, Black Claw, keys and powers and secret government departments with unknown motives and cupboards full of weapons and gadgetry. There are times when Wu thinks he'd like to not know, to just shut the door on his apartment and believe he has nothing more to worry about than if his cat has a furball.

Wu worries about other stuff too. He's a man who likes things in their place, a life with fixed points and he doesn't like seeing Renard's face on campaign posters, appearing in tv ads. Wu has worked with the Captain a long time, respects him. Trusts him, despite the secrets he hid, despite the shock of his woge. He's also grateful to him. Wu knows he's got a badge on his shirt and a gun on his hip thanks to Renard - police officers aren't usually let out of psych wards and back to active duty and ok, it might have helped that Renard knew what he was seeing was real, but even so he's grateful.

Wu reads Nick's case files - both versions - and shreds the handwritten notes once he's done. He takes messages from Renard to Nick. He thinks he knows the truth of what's going on, both the truth of what Renard's up to and the truth of them together. He's noticed, though, that the handwritten notes are barely different to the typed ones now, that there has been no discreet slip of paper pressed into his palm or in the empty coffee cup he picks up. When he sees Renard on the tv news, shaking hands, giving sound bites he sees the pretty redhead in the background. And yet he doesn't believe that is the truth.

Monroe says this is the endgame, that everything is coming to a climax. Wu is only one human, he thinks what he can do against the forces turning the world upside down is small. But maybe he can do something about this.

*****

Nick finishes off his report, squaring the pages neatly in the buff folder. Handwritten notes and typed ones, identical in content . There's both too much too say and too little for anything else. He gives the folder to Wu, watches him disappear off with it and then stares at his desk for a while. When Wu reappears, leaves a new pile of paperwork, he's slightly surprised to see the note, can't suppress the surge of excitement - or the apprehension that follows it.

Sean picks Nick's report out of the pile, flicks through the sheets of paper, finds the typed report and his handwritten notes. There is nothing, no matter how impersonal, how uninformative. Until...here, on the last page there is something. Nick's writing is getting even more difficult to read, if that's possible. Unless it's just he's losing the knack of course. But at least there's something. He reads, checks his watch, reaches for his coat.

Nick takes all the precautions, makes sure he's not followed, not tracked, approaches the house cautiously. It's in a quiet neighbourhood, single story, well-tended with flowery drapes at the window. It seems an unlikely place but he guesses that's the point. The door's not locked, he turns the handle and slips inside. The last thing he expects to see is Wu sitting on the couch, a very flowery couch. The room is full of ornaments and photos and Wu is a jarring note in his uniform, even though he looks surprisingly at home.  
"Wu, what are you doing here?"  
Before there's time for any answer he sees Wu's eyes move to the door and Nick turns, hand on his gun. It's Sean. His face is closed, suspicious, and he looks between Wu and Nick,  
"What the hell is going on here?"

"Nick, er, Captain, I know what you're doing, what's happening - or was, at least. And I thought you two needed to talk."  
Sean looks at him, jaw clenched, Nick thinks he even sees a ripple of zauberbiest as Sean takes a step forward towards Wu,  
"Did you set this up? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is, what you could have done? We are at war and you are playing games?"  
Wu holds his ground,  
"This is my Aunt Phyllis's house. She's 78, wears a lot of polyester. She's gone to Las Vegas with the 'girls' - the youngest girl is 76 - where she's going to play video poker and see an Elvis tribute act. If this house is bugged - by Black Claw, Hadrian's Wall or anyone else - I will go back to my apartment and eat my rug again. And I know we're at war, I'm fighting it as much as you, Captain, in my own way. But what is the point of fighting a war if, when you win, none of the stuff you were fighting for is left? Talk to each other."  
Wu walks to the door and leaves.

Sean and Nick watch him go with some astonishment, but then there's just the two of them. Sean looks at Nick, he's six feet away and seems a thousand, defensive posture, closed expression. Nick is slipping through his fingers, further from him by the day. How does he find the words, what can you say to someone to make them trust you, to make them believe what you really feel? He doesn't think he has those words, almost turns away to leave himself. And then the door opens again and Wu reappears,  
"Almost forgot to say - if you do get past the talking part, the spare bedroom is second on the left down the corridor. Aunt Phyllis won't mind."

Sean watches the door close behind Wu for a second time. Maybe it's the stress of his life, the stress of pretending, maybe he's just got so far to the end of this particular tether that he simply has to give way, but something very unexpected happens. From somewhere, God knows where, a small bubble of laughter appears. His lips twitch. Nick looks at him and tilts his head slightly, says, straight faced,  
"Aunt Phyllis."  
There's another bubble of laughter. Sean makes a noise, one he can't quite believe has come from his mouth. Nick takes a step closer to him,  
"Polyester."  
The laughter comes again, one bubble then another, Nick takes a further step, his own mouth twitching,  
"Las Vegas with the girls."  
And Sean is laughing, laughing so hard he can barely say the words,  
"El-, Elvis Presley tribute act..."

They hold and they laugh and they touch, and if there are a few tears mixed in too, that's okay. They have said 'I need you' and 'I want you' but it's the laughter that finally gives Sean the courage for 'I love you'. And it's the laughter that gives Nick the certainty to believe him.

Aunt Phyllis's spare room is thankfully plain, the drapes already drawn, the bed made up. Despite all that is happening this is not the time for haste, for watching the clock. They take their time over buttons and belts and zippers, the slide of cloth over skin and muscle. Fingers, hands, lips taste and tease. Nick finds the place on Sean's flank that makes him wriggle, laughs to find that Sean is ticklish. This is not the time for rush, for racing to release, this is the time for slow exploration, time to kiss and smile and say 'love' again. And finally this is the time for them to be as close as they can be, joined, complete, not just a moment of pleasure, it almost seems a pledge.

******

Sean pulls Aunt Phyllis's door behind him, hears the lock click. He would like to meet Aunt Phyllis, hopes he can one day soon. Nick is waiting at the foot of the path, turns to him,  
"I think it's time to play our cards, all of them."

******

They meet at the precinct, in Sean's office, Hank, Monroe and and Rosalee, Wu. They are waiting when Sean and Nick arrive. Sean walks straight up to Wu, looks him in the eyes,  
"Thank you."  
He reaches forward and squeezes Wu's shoulder. Across the room Nick calls,  
"Thanks Wu, I owe you one."  
Wu looks pleased but replies in his best snarky voice,  
"And I will definitely be collecting on that, just as soon as we sort out this end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario."

They head out as a group, turn into the corridor. It takes Sean a second to place the memory - of course, the night they went after Monroe, the night the Wesenrein tried him. This time of course Monroe is here, a step behind him to his left. Sean thought Monroe an eccentric and a fool when first they met, now he knows he's tempered steel. Rosalee is next to Monroe, beautiful, intelligent face determined. Behind Sean is Wu, colleague and friend, and Hank, the solid bass to their harmony. Somewhere else Eve, that tiny remnant of Juliette, will also be mobilising, along with Meisner and Adalind, Trubel, Bud's unlikely eisbiber army, fuchsbaus, steinadlers, reinigen, genio innocuo (because wars need brains as well as fighting prowess), balams and all the others. All ready for this final battle. In a different somewhere else Kelly sleeps in his crib, as safe as Nick can possibly make him.

  
Nick is on Sean's right and he turns his head to look at him, they smile at each other again. Nick reaches for his hand, holds it tightly, palm to palm. They think they can win but they might not. But they're doing it together.

And that, that is the truth, the way it should be.


End file.
